Turning the Year
by Awdures
Summary: What are midwinter festivals for, if not strange traditions with friends?
1. Chapter 1

It was disorienting enough waking up anywhere away from Angel Island. To do so the morning after of Sonic's idea of a New Year's party and to the sound of Tails shouting and... Knuckles shook his head, baffled... ringing bells? Well that was _beyond_ disorienting.

"Tails?"

It was still dark outside and Knuckles was on his feet already, disorientation notwithstanding but there was no alarm in Tails face. On the contrary he was grinning, and the ringing bells - because it _was_ bells -were chiming out from long rattle stick bedecked with ribbons and stars and glitter which the little fox was shaking vigorously.

Something tweaked at Knuckles' memory because this wasn't one of the assortment of surface traditions he'd been subjected to, as usual, this Christmas, but there was something familiar all the same. Something he'd seen or read? Something half remembered.

"Come on, Knux! We've got to go wake Sonic up!" Tails grinned. "Bring the sack and the other rattlestick."

Too puzzled or sleepy, or busy scratching for the memory to argue, Knuckles picked up the indicated sack and a second set of bells. The sack was one of the decorated left-over present bags, but full again and for some reason that too wasn't quite unexpected. Knuckles trailed after Tails as the fox arrived outside Sonic's room and promptly started banging on the door, rattling the bells and ribbons and shouting.

"Wake up, Sonic! Let us in!"

"No way!"

Sonic's answer, when it came in a pause in the racket Tails was making, didn't sound the slightest bit sleepy or surprised. Indeed he sounded like he was holding back laughter and that with difficulty.

"Kanee kanee, can we, can we, can we come in!" Tails sang out and as Knuckles watched him suddenly the whole half-remembered memory came back all at once and he _knew_ this game.

How in the wide world Tails and Sonic had discovered it or why they'd decided to recreate it was a mystery. It was _old_ , a turning of the year tradition from long before the echidnas had vanished from the Floating Island. Handed down as a children's game but the stories told of a time when even the adults had taken it at least half seriously. Part game, part battle of wits, part community celebration, as one year ended and another began with the rousing of the village at dawn.

Encouraged by Tails rapping again at the door with the bell-bedecked staff, Knuckles shouted as well.

"Let us in, Sonic!" If he'd ever played this as a child he didn't remember but he knew the form and a tradition was a tradition however they'd come by it. He hesitated for a moment reaching for the right words, the right language.

"If you don't let us in…" he warned, "We'll stand here and sing."

Tails beamed up at him and Knuckles almost laughed himself at the ridiculous mental image that presented even as he said it. He bit back the urge and continued.

"We'll make such a din… the whole of the village will say let us in!" He drew a deep breath and really bellowed as loud as he could. "Sonic, let us in!"

Definite laughter now from the other side of the door.

"Uh, well that'd almost be worth seeing. You can sing for your supper. Breakfast. Whatever. Actually that's why you _can't_ come in. It's breakfast time and I haven't got breakfast for you all. So sorry, very sad, away you go! You can't come in."

Well that was the gist if not quite the lyrical metre. Tails grinned and dived for the sack and Knuckles called back, readier with the words this time.

"We've come with our own, don't breakfast alone.

Last fruit of the old year, first fruit of the new,

Chestnuts and chickweed, we'll share them with you"

"Yuk!" Sonic yelled back. "Call that breakfast? Where's the chillidogs?"

Knuckles' jaw dropped and even Tails protested.

"For breakfast!" He rummaged again. "We've got… er… chocolate?"

"Hmmm. Well maybe." Sonic opened the door a crack, one green eye and half an inch of grin visible. "But y'know it's kind of a small room. Not sure there's room for the pair of you and all that stuff."

They were well off-script now, but Knuckles knew that was part of the game as well, the call and response of tradition then the challenge and counter, the game of trying to guess what excuses and demands might be made and how they might be dodged or rebutted.

Tails had already gotten off his response.

"I'll just fly overhead and sit on a shelf!" He looked at Knuckles expectantly for the rhyme and the echidna groped for one while Sonic smirked from behind the door.

"I'll smack down this door and make room for myself!"

"Woah!" Sonic swung the door all the way open and held up his hands. "Overkill, Knux. But in the interests of not wrecking Tails' place I guess you'd better come in."

Tails whooped and took off to shoot through the door at head height, rattling his bells for all he was worth. Sonic backed up to allow Knuckles entrance and jumped up on the bed where he sat cross-egged, still in his socks.

"So do I really get that chocolate then?"

Knuckles snagged the bag from Tails as he orbited past them and tossed it to Sonic.

"Yeah. But for breakfast? Really?"

"Sure." Sonic was already tearing the wrapping open. "If you can't at this time of year when can you?"

Tails dropped out of the air beside him in time to reach for a piece of chocolate with one hand and for Knuckles' arm with the other, to pull him down to sit with to them and press a piece of the chocolate into his hands as well.

Knuckles sat, raising the chocolate to his mouth, too bemused to resist. He spoke around it. "How did you…? _Why_ did you?"

Sonic and Tails looked at each other.

"I'm not sure when we thought of it. We'd been talking about Christmas stuff and getting you to come down this year and it just seemed like it'd be cool to find a tradition from your lot instead of always us."

Knuckles let ' _your lot'_ pass. "I'd shown Tails the translations I'd been doing of the old stories," he said instead.

"Yeah. He may have come back making notes…"

Knuckles sat quietly for a moment working out how much time all this must have taken.

"Thank you."

Sonic shrugged and grinned and Tails leaned in against him where they were all squashed on the bed.

"I don't know if I ever played it growing up." Knuckles found himself saying though no one had asked. "I don't remember. Whether there were enough echidnas left on the Island to even visit? If there was time left for games? If I was already going to be Guardian whether I'd have been allowed to wander around playing it? I don't know. I know I read about it. But it didn't feel like something I'd only read. It felt familiar."

"So maybe you did," Tails said.

"Maybe."

Sonic jumped up. "Good, but the point is, was it fun?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Yes, Sonic. It was fun."

Sonic blinked at him. "Well that was an easy admission for once. Cool. And we're not done yet. Who else can we go and wake up? Amy?"

Knuckles raised his eyebrows. "Yes, why not. I'm sure she'd love to see you at this time in the morning, all bedquills and socks."

Sonic's eyes widened. "Er, maybe not." His eyes glittered. "Rouge then?"

"No!"

"Shadow?"

"You want to wake Shadow up, with no warning, when it's still dark out? Do you _want_ to get us killed?"

"Meh, like he could take us." Sonic was hunting under the bed, presumably for his shoes. "Anyway, going back to quills, I hear a rumour that it's not only those staff things that are supposed to be all decorated up will bells and ribbons and pretty stars.

Tails giggled and Knuckles stared at Sonic as he stood on one foot, fastening the opposite shoe.

"If you expect me to dangle bells and ribbons from my spines and go prancing through the village like a puggle on one of your sugar highs you've got another think coming, hedgehog." He paused as a thought struck him. "Anyway, _hedgehog_ , I'm not the only one with spines."

Sonic opened his mouth to argue and hesitated before his face slid into a smirk. "You know, it really _would_ almost be worth it just to see that." He laughed. "It really, really would. Yeah. I'm game. In fact I absolutely doubledogdare you!"

Knuckles blinked, certain the conversation had got away from him but not quite sure where to.

"He meant he'll decorate his quills if you do," Tails said. "And any one who ducks out is a big loser."

Later, Knuckles wasn't entirely sure why such a ludicrously silly consequence as name calling had been enough to make him agree but nevertheless that's how they found themselves. Running through the village raising an almighty din in the grey dawn light.

Tails was waving at upstairs windows, bells ringing wildly. Sonic laughed, watching him.

"Amy'll say we can't come in because we always wreck the place," he predicted, having apparently changed his mind about visiting.

" _We?_ " asked Knuckles. " _You_ wreck the place, Sonic. Me and Tails know how to sit still."

"Yeah right - and who went flying across the room, scattering furniture last year?" Sonic shot back at once.

"You gave me an _exploding_ gift, Sonic!"

"That was a cracker, Knux. 'Explosion' is overdoing it a bit don't you think?"

Knuckles opened his mouth for a retort, but Tails had swooped back down to them.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "I've got something for that anyway!" He dropped the sack back to the ground and dived in, pulling out a half-sized whisk broom. "We can just tell her we're ready to clean right up!"

Sonic laughed. "Nice one. Let's go!" He spun on the spot. "Wake up, the village!" he bellowed waving his belled staff. The ribbons blowing around his face were already tattered where the brisk winter wind had shredded them against his quills.

"Hopeless," Knuckles shook his head, making the bells in his own quills ring and took a deep breath.

"Up up up for the new year! Up for the welcome cup, up for the dawn! UP!" He roared it loud enough to make both Sonic and Tails lay their ears flat.

"Okay, so you've got the bigger mouth." Sonic stuck his tongue out.

Knuckles snorted. "Sonic, you have got the biggest mouth of anyone I've ever met."

By way of answer, Sonic gave him enough of a smirk to carry a warning before swinging his ribboned staff at his head. Knuckles ducked and spun, so it clipped nothing more than spines and ribbons. In the same movement, almost in reflex, he swiped his own staff at the hedgehog's knees. Sonic jumped over it into a backflip and aimed a foot at Knuckles' chin on the way - which was no longer where it had been.

"Still sleepy, Sonic? Slow this morning…"

"Ooohhh you are asking for such a smackdown," Sonic said, but the grin on his face couldn't have been broader.

"Offering, hedgehog, not asking, " and Knuckles knew he was grinning too.

Somewhere above them Tails was laughing. Around them confused faces were appearing at doors and windows, and there was something in the dawn air, or the spirit of a new year ahead or something else entirely, perhaps even merely, as Knuckles had complained, the amount of sugar at breakfast time. Something silly, fierce and gleeful all at once.

It was impossible to spar seriously on the slippery, snow-trodden cobbles which put them both in constant peril of going tail over tip even without the other's intervention. Even so, as they scuffled, Knuckles realised he knew another reason why the call-and-challenge was so old-new familiar.

Part game, part battle, part words and front.

He'd already played it with Sonic a hundred times.


	2. Chapter 2

_I thought I'd finished this but this one scene kept niggling at me so got written down eventually. Late by one standard but since huge swathes of the echidna New Year outing is my repurposing of a local tradition that runs on a selection of dates from winter solstice through to Hen Galan on the 13th Jan, depending on where exactly you live, I reckon it can stand!_

* * *

"Shh shush shush," Sonic spun round to deliver this instruction so quickly that the ringing of the bells in his quills nearly drowned out the actual words. Knuckles opened his mouth to point this out but Sonic had already gone on. "You'll wake her up before we even get there!"

"Us?" Knuckles asked incredulously in the first available gap in the conversation.

Sonic grinned and Tails giggled and they both joined Sonic in surveying Amy's house. Knuckles shook the damp, tangled mess of quills and ribbons back off his face, brushed down his snow-wet fur, and waved Sonic forward.

"After you, and on your own head be it!"

Sonic shot him a confident grin and strode to the door.

"Just you pair be ready with bribes and/or menaces!"

Tails raised the sack as best he could and beamed back. Knuckles followed on Sonic's heels out of pure curiosity.

Sonic hammered on the door briefly then cupped both hands around his mouth.

"This is your New Year's waaaake up!"

There was a long pause.

"Is there another verse to that 'let us in song'?" Tails asked but Knuckles had not yet answered when the door burst open and Amy's hammer preceded the hedgehog herself out of the house with blistering momentum.

Sheer instinct, and the sudden awareness that his head was directly in the line of fire made Knuckles turn and swing for it, catching it on one clawed fist with a shock of impact that stung all the way up to his shoulder. He hadn't even seen Sonic move but clearly he'd hit the deck near instantaneously because he was picking himself back up from the cobbles when Knuckles looked down.

Tails stared, wide-eyed. "Uh, so can we come in?" he said, faintly.

Amy glared at them. "I thought you were Eggman come to launch a pre-dawn raid or something! What the heck!?"

She'd let go of the hammer and was alternately wringing and shaking the fingers of the hand that had held it.

Sonic meanwhile, despite having come within a spine's length of having his head knocked off his shoulders, was laughing so hard he could hardly stand.

Amy's scowl deepened. "What are you doing and _what_ in the name of sanity are you wearing?"

Sonic looked her in the eye then fell about laughing again.

"You can... you can... You can talk!" he hiccoughed through another gale of laughter.

Amy's hand closed on the hammer again.

"Woah woah woah!" Tails said urgently and Knuckles raised both hands.

"Get a grip." Knuckles shook Sonic urgently who straightened up.

"Sorry, Ames." Sonic composed himself carefully. "You look very-" there was a stifled sound which was perhaps just a cough in the chilly morning air. "-nice. This morning."

Amy gave all three of them a suspicious look and Knuckles belatedly caught up with why Sonic was so amused by her appearance. Clearly having been roused from deep sleep to a possible fight Amy was flushed and her quills stuck up in every direction. Fluffy pastel blue pyjamas were rucked at knees and elbows and she'd only managed to get one boot on before hurtling to the door.

But made it to the door, ready to face any threat, she had indeed done and Knuckles dipped his head in respectful acknowledgement, ignoring Sonic's smirk.

"We're not Eggman. But if we had been, we'd have regretted it."

He offered it up as a compliment and Amy's scowl lessened fractionally.

"Hmmm," she looked them up and down. "You might still regret it, I haven't decided yet."

"We brought chocolate and we promise not to wreck the place," Tails put in.

"Yeah and Knux has got a song to sing," Sonic was stifling laughter again and Amy looked between them, baffled. "It's a tradition."

"Is it…?" Amy's expression finally tipped over into amusement. "And what about _you_ , Sonic? Any other traditions you're planning on sharing this year? She gave a pointed glance at the mistletoe hanging over her door.

"Hah!" Knuckles gave a bark of laughter and pushed Sonic forward, cheerfully. "On you go, Sonic. We have to trade _something_ to be allowed in after all!"

Sonic spun and gave Knuckles a glare which nearly matched Amy's with his muzzle flushed the same colour as her fur.

"This is an ambush!" he declared. "I have been ambushed. You're all in it together!"

Tails giggled and Knuckles shrugged.

"You picked the door to knock, Sonic. Now hurry it up, our toes and tails are freezing solid out here."

Sonic glared at the pair of then then plastered a bright, if uncharacteristically awkward smile on his face and turned back to Amy…

* * *

 _...and I'll leave it up to the shippers or otherwise to decide what happened next! ;-) I just wanted to write her taking a swing at them! Happy New Year!_


End file.
